Does any one know how long it usually takes them to tear down queen cells after a swarm?
Is there some reason that there would be supercedure cells directly following a swarm?
Queen cells that have been capped before or immediately after a swarm will either hatch out or be torn apart by by a new virgin queen. This would happen within about 9 days of the swarm leaving. That doesn't keep the bees from making new swarm cells if the population is high enough to justify after-swarms. And yes, if the new virgin queen has a problem, the bees might also make supersedeure cells.
So the Queen Cells that are still there are probably viable? Could I do a split and expect them to emerge properly? Or remove them to a nuc?
If the cells are undamaged and of good size, you might indeed use them to make a split or just raise a spare queen. But for that, find the cells before the swarm and do the same thing. That way you don't lose all your bees and honey production.
Quote from: Vance G on June 12, 2011, 12:28:48 PM
If the cells are undamaged and of good size, you might indeed use them to make a split or just raise a spare queen. But for that, find the cells before the swarm and do the same thing. That way you don't lose all your bees and honey production.
Yes, it's better if you can do the split before the swarm. If you can move the original queen and some frames, you will be simulating a swarm and that way you don't lose any bees. But if you still want to do a split, you can put at least one swarm cell in each box along with some honey/pollen and capped brood. That will get them up and running quickly.
I don't know that I've ever seen any evidence that larger queen cells are better. But you want one that is intact.
Oops! too late. Looked today and all of those queen cells were open and or torn up! Next time....
semi-hijack of thread to continue thought.
If you just had a swarm (as I did :'(), is there any sense to go in there and remove a number of queen cells, so you only had say 3 left to limit afterswarming??
Makes sense not to go down to just 1 queen cell as you never know what ones are viable, but if you go in to the hive post swarm and find 10 queen cells (and don't want to make splits since you just had a big swarm), would there be sense to remove 7 of those 10??
I haven't been in the hive for a bit to know how many queen cells might be in there, but a swarm just took off today (as I was afraid it might soon as it was a great population hive that I had 2 supers on, so just didn't feel like digging around to see if there were queen cells).
I've seen them torn down quickly and I've seen them left for some time. Hard to predict.